I am (still) attempting to upload large files <200mb via a html form using php.
During my research into this I have come across the term "chunking", I understand that this process can break the file into handy sizes such as 5mb and reassemble them into the full file at the server side.
My problem seems to be where I can begin? I seem unable to find the correct resources by googling (Or perhaps I'm suffering from not knowing which terms to search for).
So what I'm hoping for today is a chance to educate myself with the basics, a direction in which to look would be very helpful. I don't really want to download a plug-in or anything like that, I would prefer to learn by experimentation.
EDIT to add: Although the two answers below would appear to be correct, this takes me into the realm of stuff that I can't do as a designer...If anyone reading this can suggest a different approach I would appreciate it.
Web browsers do not split uploads into chunks. For this you'll have to use your own "chunking" client: a Flash program or a Java applet.
You can take a look at JUpload. There are also examples in the wiki.
From SourceForge :
Multiple File Upload Applet (JUpload) takes care of the limitation posed by traditional HTML upload forms by allowing you to upload a whole directory and the files within it with a single click. Optionally, it allows simple picture management.
Related
I developed a system that contains many MP3 files that users can listen to them online/stream, since most of my users are Iranians and Iran internet speed is sucks, I came up with an idea, but I can’t find the right/best way to do that.
I have alots of different berates: 128kps, 192kps, 320kps, etc… I would like to know what’s the best way to remotely convert these files to 32/64kps qualitie, and of course, temporarily.
I mean, after the new file 32kbps generated. After period of time the generated file automatically delete.
I did lots of search before I ask this question, but none of the results answered my question.
BTW, I find the LAME library.
Is there a way to do that with pure PHP?
Is there a way to do that with pure PHP?
Nope. Not at all. PHP is a server-side scripting language that depends on add-ons & external functions. That said, there is a SWFMovie::streamMP3 function, but as the page says, “This function is EXPERIMENTAL.”
You are much better off learning about MP3 streaming software like Mopidity which is a Python-based music server. Might also look into Andromeda which appears to be PHP-based. And such. Reinventing the wheel will not be fun at all. You are better off researching how to use Open Source MP3 streaming software as best as possible & adapt it for your needs.
I want to know if it is possible to view a PDF file in a webapp of some kind, then be able to trace over lines in the PDF file and submit the lengths to an MySQL database.
Basically import a PDF file, trace around a shape in that PDF file and save those values.
I work with House plans and this would make my job a lot easier.
Is it possible? and can someone point me in the right direction on where to read more.
I know its possible to pull text from a PDF file, I've seen heaps of info on how to do that using various libraries, but nothing on a Vector shape (house plan).
If it's not possible in PHP which language should I look into, the only reason I ask is because I have basic skills in PHP and have already written some simple apps that help me out, this would just be the final touch to make my job easier.
Thanks
Parsing PDFs is a world of pain... And PHP is probably as good language to jump into this as any other.
I would recommend you to start your research with GhostScript, it has a CLI interface which could be accessed by php
I'm working on a biology web based application and trying to figure out what language to use. The features I need to include are:
Image viewing frame - This area will display the current image that the biologists wish to see. The application needs to take in a number of coordinates from a file and draw those points on the image displayed here. When the biologist wishes to change images there needs to be no flickering from the refresh. Will do this using multiple image buffers probably. Content needs to be scrollable and able to be zoomed in.
There need to be labeled buttons that advance, step back, zoom, and play the images displaying in the image frame. There also needs to be some type of list view where images titles can be selected to be displayed.
There will be a bunch of folders of images on the server that can be selected from. The application must allow the user to select which folder of images to be loaded. It also must be able to read from either an txt or xml file and visually display the information there by way of line graph.
Would like to be able to run scripts on the server from the application.
I feel that all these things are doable by a web application but I have no idea what language to use. Most people recommend php, but i don't want to delve deeper until I know what its limitations are. Any suggestions are welcome. Thanks in advance.
-Mike
PHP can do everything you need for the back end, but most of the stuff that you describe is UI based, and this is dependent on the client, which is, of course, the browser. For highly graphical projects, you can do a lot in JavaScript and some JavaScript libraries have a lot of these capabilities built in. You might also consider Flash or Flex.
You might even consider a desktop application that runs outside of the browser. You can use Java, which is easy to deploy, but still requires the user to have the Java Runtime Engine, or you could go with a language that you can compile down to a native application.
Regardless of the front end technology that you choose, you'll still need a back end, and PHP can handle this.
You will find almost every server side platforms such as php , asp.net, asp, etc will do all of the above.
PHP is a language that resides on the server and handles all requests. Javascript (and associated libraries) is a language which is executed by the client's browser and handles (almost) all interaction. PHP is definitely able to do what you want, but for the interaction stuff (particularly the zoom, scrolling, etc.), you'll also need to use Javascript.
So, short answer, PHP is good, but you're going to need to use client-side scripting as well.
PHP is more than capable of doing this. You are going to need to use it in combination with some Javascript to handle the client side effects you describe. I would look into modifying galerific for your needs and then whip up some javascript to write points over the images.
From your concerns about image refresh/flicker, it really sounds like a desktop app is what you are looking for, for a rapid response on image changes. The requirements on this really seem to need to be defined better before you can choose a language... PHP can do all the server side stuff you mentioned, but you might have a harder time getting the image viewing "frame" to provide the functionality you want.
Due to the image manipulation requirements it might be easier to go with something like flash with a php backend or asp.net with silverlight. It might be difficult to prevent flicker and delays with using pure javascript as opposed to flash/silverlight.
Image viewing frame
This will most likely need to be done on the client side using tools/frameworks such as jQuery, the canvas element, silverlight, or any of the other 100's that are out there.
There need to be labeled buttons that advance, step back, zoom, and play the images displaying in the image frame. There also needs to be some type of list view where images titles can be selected to be displayed.
PHP or any other server-side scripting language could pull this off. If this is meant to be a quick project running on free/cheap hardware then PHP would be a good choice. If the plan is a large application that will have to be maintained over the course of many years and hosting/price is not an issue then I would suggest something like ASP.NET
There will be a bunch of folders of images on the server that can be selected from. The application must allow the user to select which folder of images to be loaded. It also must be able to read from either an txt or xml file and visually display the information there by way of line graph.
Again any server side language could do the folder listing portion. As for reading files and creating graphs, this would most likely be a combination of server side and client side programming. jQuery for example, has plugins that could quite easily take a xml file and create a line graph.
Would like to be able to run scripts on the server from the application.
PHP, ASP.NET - both could do this. I'm sure many others could, but these are the ones i use most often
The issue with PHP is that quite often, the code turns into a mess over time. This is maybe not so much an issue with the language as the people using it and the purpose the app was built for (a quick, one time project). Classic ASP also has the same issues.
ASP.NET is a good combination of OOP programming that allows you to separate presentation from logic with minimal effort.
I was trying to upload a photo on facebook using a browser with no flash, and could see that it didn't work.
I am pretty confident in handling files and related issues using Php and have done some sites allowing users to upload and manage files (images, docs etc). But I never thought about the above flash approach. I googled a bit and saw that there are few scripts available on which I can look how it works using flash.
But my questions are, when I should decide to use flash for user uploads. What are the advantages of using this approach? or disadvantages?
Thanks
It isn't a choice between Flash and PHP. You need something on the client to send the data and something on the server to receive it.
Ask yourself the following question:
Does Flash offer anything useful for my project?
The obvious things it lets you do are having a nice UI for selecting multiple files at once, and a simple method for seeing the progress of uploads.
If you decide that it does offer features, then implement it using progressive enhancement. Flickr is an example of this — with Flash you get the fancy uploader, without it you still get a series of regular file inputs. They aren't as nice to use, but they are functional and what would have been used if Flash wasn't an option in the first place
Depends on your audience: If you are pretty sure that your users have flash installed, there is nothing against it. It even gives some neat advantages, like:
Upload of multiple files at once
Progress bar while uploading
Instant preview of uploaded media
etc.
Well, with flash, the obvious letdown is that it will only work when a user has flash (although, you could display something in its place if they didn't). If your a flash programmer and comfortable with flash, I can see how it would be better. You could generate a file list, multiple uploads ect. I would say it's just an alternative to JavaScript for providing interactivity and allowing users to upload content dynamically.
when I should decide to use flash for
user uploads.
use it when the whole website is flash, but that is not professional and you can't count a lot on flash security, while you can write/use a lot of classes for hardening and checking files uploaded by php scripts..
on the other hand, some people like flash upload for progress bars, but you can do such stuff with php and jquery. for example check uplodify
Correction
I don't have flash support on my current browser so when watching uploadify demos I only see the fallback, thanks to soulmerge for making this clear
Does anyone know of any methods to create a file upload progress bar in PHP? I have often heard that it's impossible.
I have one idea, but not sure if it would work: have a normal file upload, but instead submit to an iframe. When this is submitted, store the file information (size and temp location) in the session. At the same time, start an AJAX call to every say 10 seconds to check the size of the file compared to the size stored in the session. This would return the size to the AJAX and then a progress bar would be sized and maybe display the uploaded size to the user.
Thoughts?
You're pretty much figured out how to do it. The main problem is you usually don't have access to the size of the uploaded file until it's done uploading.
There are workarounds for this:
Enabling APC, you to access this information if you include a field called "APC_UPLOAD_PROGRESS" and use apc_fetch() for retrieving a cache entry with the status.
There's also a plugin called uploadprogress but it's not very well documented and doesn't work on Windows (last I checked anyway).
An alternative is to use Flash for doing it. See scripts like FancyUpload.
Before APC came along I had to write a CGI script in C that wrote information to a text file. APC seems like a much better way to do it now though.
Hope this helps.
So far, the most common way of doing this is SWFUpload: http://www.swfupload.org/
However, it is possible with pure PHP, just very difficult and very experimental. I'll see if I can find the link.
Edit:
According to comments on php.net, as of 5.2 there is a hook to handle upload progress. http://us.php.net/features.file-upload#71564
More explanation:
http://www.dinke.net/blog/2006/11/04/php-52-upload-progress-meter/en/
http://blog.liip.ch/archive/2006/09/10/upload-progress-meter-extension-for-php-5-2.html
Rasmus' Example:
http://progphp.com/progress.phps
You can try YUI or Prototype or JQuery
From PHP 5.4 it is in session extension: http://php.net//manual/pl/session.upload-progress.php
In pure PHP, you are correct: it's not possible.
If you AJAX-ify this, then you could do what you're describing. The only progress meters I've ever seen are in Javascript or Flash, though I imagine Silverlight could do it also.
"Old school", but a PHP + Perl technique: http://www.raditha.com/php/progress.php
In my opinion, the best / easiest solution is to build a small flash widget, that consists of an 'Upload' button and a progress bar. Flash gives you very detailed feedback on how much data has been uploaded so far, and you can build a nice progress bar based on that. Doesn't require inefficient polling of the server, and in fact doesn't require any changes at all to your server code. Google for 'flash uploader' and you'll find many people have already written these widgets and are happy to sell them to you for a buck.
I'd recommend looking at SWFUpload to accomplish what you want. It's fairly flexible and supports queueing of files, so you could even handle multi-file uploads.
You will definately want to go with digitgerald's FancyUpload. It's Mootools & swfuplaod based, and it sports a nice queue with statusses, progress, eta etc. It's really the slickest method i've seen for uploading files. For my personal use case ivé used it to let the client select 1.2 gb of PDF files and upload them. Newer ones get renamed and versioned automatically, same are skipped, etc.